The Nazi Party:
Plötzensee Prison

Plötzensee prison was built between 1868 and
1879 as a prison outside the Berlin city limits. Covering an area of more than 25 hectares (about 62 acres),
it arose as a complex of structures for accommodating 1,200 inmates
that included many open areas. In addition to the prison buildings themselves,
the red brick complex included administration buildings, service buildings,
numerous work sheds, a prison infirmary, a chapel, and housing for prison
staff.

There was a significant difference between German penitentiaries
and prisons. The penitentiaries were characterized by strict isolation
and disciplinary measures, whereas prison inmates were generally convicts
serving shorter sentences under less severe conditions. The aim of Plötzensee
prison was to rehabilitate its inmates as opposed to exacting retribution
from them.

Shortly after the National Socialist takeover in 1933,
prison discipline also became harsher in Plötzensee. The goals
of the penal system were now retribution, deterrence, and the “elimination”
of persons regarded as inferior. Plötzensee now serves as a facility
for pretrial confinement for persons arraigned on political charges.
Increasing numbers of such cases were prosecuted before the National
Socialist Special Courts (Sondergerichte) created in 1933, before
the political criminal tribunals of the appellate court, and before
the “People’s Court,” established in 1934.

During the war increasing numbers of foreigners were
incarcerated who had been deported to Germany as forced
laborers. They form a fourth group of inmates in Plötzensee
in addition to the German prisoners who were generally serving shorter
sentences, political suspects in pretrial confinement, and convicts
awaiting execution. “Repeat offenders” sentenced to more
than a year in National Socialist prison have hardly any chance of ever
regaining their freedom. Once they have served their sentence, they
were turned over to the criminal investigation division of the police,
which generally arranged for them to be sent to concentration
camps for “protective custody.”

Off With Their Heads

From 1890 to 1932, a total of 36 persons convicted
of murder were put to death with an executioner’s ax outdoors
in the prison courtyard. In contrast, 2,891 persons fall victim to killings
at the hands of the judiciary in Plötzensee during the 12 years
of National Socialist terror from 1933 to 1945.

Until 1933,
only murder and severe felonies involving explosives were punishable
by death; by 1938,
25 offenses involve capital punishment. From 1939 on, under the wartime special criminal law, the death penalty threatened
even those charged with minor offenses.

In the first few years from 1933 to 1936, a total
of 45 people were put to death with an executioner’s ax in the
prison courtyard in Plötzensee. On October 14, 1936, Adolf
Hitler approved Justice Minister Franz Gürtner’s proposal
that the guillotine be used for carrying out capital punishment in the
future.

A work shed was designated as the site of future executions
in Plötzensee in 1937.
Under strict secrecy, a guillotine was transported from the Bruchsal
prison in Baden to Plötzensee and erected there. Thirty-seven persons
were murdered with the new machine during the remainder of 1937; 56
were murdered in 1938, and 95 in 1939.

The condemned prisoners were kept in the large cell
block building (House III) directly adjacent to the execution shed.
They spent their final hours in shackles in special cells on the ground
floor, which the prisoners called the “house of the dead.” Their final
steps took them through a small courtyard to the execution chamber housing
the guillotine.

In late 1942,
the execution chamber was fitted with a steel beam to which eight iron
hooks were fastened. This gallows was then used for hangings. The first
to die here were members of the resistance organization known as the Red Orchestra. Later they were followed by
resistance fighters involved in the attempted coup of July
20, 1944.

The executioners receive an annual salary of 3,000
Reichsmarks and a special bonus of 60 Reichsmarks for each execution,
which was later raised to 65 Reichsmarks. The families of the executed
prisoners had to pay an “invoice of expenses.” The public prosecutor
charged 1.50 Reichsmarks for every day of custody in Plötzensee,
300 Reichsmarks for the execution, and 12 Pfennigs to cover the postage
for the “invoice of expenses.”

The 2,891 people murdered in Plötzensee during
the National Socialist regime included approximately 1,500 convicted
by the “People’s
Court” and about 1,000 convicted by the Special Courts. The other
400 victims were sentenced to death by the Reich Military Court; other
military courts; but also the Reich Court, the appellate court, or other
state courts.

About half of those executed were Germans, most of
whom were sentenced to death for acts of resistance against the lawless
National Socialist state. However, the victims of the lawless National
Socialist judiciary in Plötzensee also included many persons receiving
death sentences as overly harsh punishment for minor offenses, especially
after 1939.

The judicial system was even more ruthless against
foreigners convicted of a crime. Six hundred seventy-seven executed
prisoners were from Czechoslovakia alone, which Germany occupied in
1938-39. The “People’s Court” convening in Berlin was generally
responsible for the persecution of political resistance in Czechoslovakia,
and this court handed down many death sentences.

Two hundred fifty-three death sentences were carried
out against Poles, and 245 against French citizens. These people included
both members of resistance organizations and people who were deported
to Germany for forced labor. After 1939, Plötzensee was the site
where people from all parts of German-occupied territory die.

Air Raid Fallout

During an air raid on Berlin in the night September
3-4, 1943, the
blacked out Plötzensee prison was hit several times by Allied bombs
and heavily damaged. As during every air raid, the prisoners remain
locked in their cells without any defense against direct hits. Part
of the large cell block building (House III) was destroyed. Many of
the cell doors were torn open by the force of the explosions and, in
the general confusion, four prisoners awaiting execution were able to
escape.

In early September 1943, a total of about 300 prisoners
sentenced to death were confined in Plötzensee awaiting the outcome
of pending clemency proceedings. On September 3, 1943, immediately before
the heavy air raid on Berlin, Hitler complained to the Reich minister
of justice about the long time involved in completing clemency proceedings.
The ministry subsequently became intent on speeding up the executions
in Plötzensee; however, the execution shed was also hit in the
air raid, and the guillotine was severely damaged.

The Reich Ministry of Justice received the names of
prisoners sentenced to death by telephone on September 7, 1943. As Justice
Minister Otto Thierack was away on official business, his state secretary
Curt Rothenberger reviewed the cases and ruled on the clemency proceedings
without waiting for the usual depositions. In nearly every case, Rothenberger
ordered the sentence to be carried out and had the names forwarded to
Plötzensee by telephone.

In Plötzensee, executioner Reindl and his assistants
prepared for the executions. In the evening, a Regional Court director
representing the senior Reich prosecutor of the “People's Court” and
a public prosecutor from the public prosecutor's office of the Regional
Court, Berlin, arrived as “enforcement supervisors.” Because the guillotine
was destroyed, the prisoners were hanged on the back wall in groups
of eight. In the night of September 7-8, 1943, alone, 186 people died
in this manner. Also, six prisoners whose clemency proceedings were
still pending were “mistakenly” hanged. Reich Justice Minister Otto
Thierack learned of the atrocious matter shortly thereafter. He had
it covered up and ordered the mass executions to continue.

After pausing for only 12 hours, the executioners in
Plötzensee hung more than 60 additional victims during the following
nights until September 12, 1943. More than 250 people were murdered
between September 7 and 12, 1943, among them German, French, and especially
Czech prisoners.

The Terror Ends

Overcrowding, deficient and often insufficient nutrition,
and delayed or withheld medical treatment combined to create chronically
poor living conditions for the inmates in the second half of the war.
Inmates were successively released in the spring of 1945. By the time
the Soviet Army captured the facility on April 25, 1945, it was largely
empty.

In 1945, the Allies determined that Plötzensee
should serve as a juvenile prison in the future. The large cell block
building was not rebuilt, and House III was torn down. Instead, new
structures were built to house juvenile offenders. Plötzensee still
includes a prison infirmary.

In 1951, the Berlin Senate decided to erect a memorial
in Plötzensee. Architect Bruno Grimmek was entrusted with the planning.
Portions of the execution shed were torn down, and a memorial wall was
erected in front of it. The cornerstone of the memorial was laid on
September 9, 1951; the memorial was officially inaugurated on September
14, 1952. Since that time, Plötzensee has become a place of silent
remembrance commemorating all the victims of the National Socialist
dictatorship.